Yiddish (YIDDISH)

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
In this beginners' course students will learn to speak, read, and write Yiddish. Following the communicative method, students will focus in class on oral communication by playing out short dialogues. Grammar will be taught inductively, based on examples that have already become familiar. The course will offer an introduction to Yiddish culture through a variety of songs, stories, film clips, and other illustrations. By the end of the semester, students should be able to express themselves with some sophistication about a variety of topics in the present tense and also understand the past tense.

Elementary Yiddish: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
In this beginners' course students will learn to speak, read, and write Yiddish, the original lannguage of East European Jews. Using the communicative method and the new textbook In Eynem, students will focus in class on speaking by playing out short dialogues. Grammar will be taught inductively, through examples. The course will introduce Yiddish culture through a variety of songs, stories, film clips, and illustrations.
Elementary Yiddish: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2021
In this continuation of the beginners' course, students will improve their speaking, reading, and writing in Yiddish. The class will apply the communicative method and continue to use the textbook In Eynem (2020). Students will focus in class on speaking and playing out short dialogues, while homework will be devoted to writing and reading. Grammar will be taught inductively, through examples. The course will present Yiddish culture through a variety of songs, stories, film clips, and illustrations.
Elementary Yiddish (Yiddish 2): Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course is a second-part introduction to the language that has been spoken by Ashkenazic Jews for more than a millennium, and an opportunity to discover the rich world of Yiddish language and culture through literature, music, folklore, television, blogs, and even memes. Using the communicative approach, we will learn how to speak, read, listen, write, and think critically about the worlds of Yiddish past and present.
Elementary Yiddish 2: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2022
This course will trace the development of Yiddish culture from the first settlement of Jews in German lands through centuries of life in Eastern Europe, down to the main cultural centers today in Israel and America. The course will examine how changes in Jewish life have found expression in the Yiddish language. It will provide an introduction to Yiddish literature in English translation, supplemented by excursions into Yiddish music, folklore, theater, and film.

History of Yiddish Culture in English: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024
This course will trace the development of Yiddish civilization down to today from the first settlement of Jews in German lands, roughly a thousand years ago. At its peak, Yiddish was spoken over a larger European territory than any language except Russian. In fact, long before Yiddish culture came to be centered in Eastern Europe, many of the best works of Old Yiddish literature were written in Renaissance Italy. Because Jews were a highly mobile population in contact with many different peoples, Yiddish was everywhere influenced by neighboring languages and became the prototypical fusion language.
History of Yiddish Civilization: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course will trace the literary journey of Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1993)—the only Yiddish writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature—from the small Polish village where he was born to the Upper West Side of Manhattan. For his American readers Singer represented a bridge between the Old World and the New, between religious tradition and American modernity. He seemed like a kindly old grandfather, telling jokes and feeding the pigeons on Broadway. But Singer was a controversial figure in the Yiddish literary world: critics considered him a sellout for winning commercial success with stories about sex, immorality, and the supernatural.
Between Tradition and Modernity: Isaac Bashevis Singer: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course will trace the history of Yiddish cinema from its "golden era" before World War II down to today. Jews famously played a big role in the development of modern cinema, especially as Hollywood
producers and studio moguls. But although many of these moguls knew Yiddish and were themselves immigrants, they were not anxious to make Jewish films at a time of increasing anti-Semitism. During Hollywood's Golden Age, Yiddish films were not made by the major studios, but independently, mainly in New Many York and Poland. The Yiddish film industry was closely linked to the world of Yiddish theater, which was enormously popular on New York's Lower East Side.
History of Yiddish Cinema: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
Topics will vary from semester to semester. See departmental announcement for offerings. Additional screening time may be required for film topics.
Special Topics: Read More [+]